Photosynth

That Photosynth thing blew my mind. Wow. Putting all of the ethical objections aside, that is one incredible program. I gather that people can just upload photos that they or anyone else has taken, then they synth them with the program to create a 3D representation of the picture subjects. So, what could happen when people upload all of the photos in the entire world to this Photosynth? Could we create a representation of the entire world through this? What are the implications of that? I’m envisioning something like the Invention of Morel in this photosynth program. It does not have the capability to produce the things it photographs, but this seems like the best first step towards that goal.
Photosynth seems like it would tie into Google earth really well. Check out the Google Earth (GE) blog discussing Photosynth. If GE was combined with Photosynth, they could create an entire representation of the world in detail. Google Earth already allows users of Picasa, Google’s photo program, to geotag their photos and have them show up on the map.
Now, what is the potential of this technology, where could this lead? Now that people can upload photos and organize them into three dimensional models, what is the next step? Where would Burroughs take this?
What if we could upload videos instead of just still photos? Let’s imagine that we could create one storage site for all of the photos in Photosynth. Let’s go even further and say that this storage space is Google Earth. Then, how about we install webcams everywhere, street corners and such, and we program these webcams to instantly update their most recent shots to Photosynth. With this, a 1984-esque system of constant surveillance could be created. Is this where we want our technology to lead? 1984 tells us how such a system can be used to manipulate and control the people. I find this new technology to have potentially scary implications.
So, intrigued by this photosynth program, I decided to try the program out for myself. I downloaded it (free!) and synthed a few photos that I had from a snow caving trip this last weekend. I expected Photosynth to create a virtual representation of the snow cave. In the tutorial video, it says to choose objects that have strong color variations, i.e.: not the dull white walls of our snow cave. The program, unable to synth the white walls of the cave, chose instead to match my roommate’s face. What happened is that I took three pictures in a row, and he held a similar expression in the three shots, even though those around him had moved. This ability to recognize faces makes me think that our Britney Spears idea is entirely possible as the program is now. In class as we discussed it, I imagined that this program is not advanced enough to do such a task. Now I realize how close it really is. Is the world really ready for public facial recognition software? The guy in the demo had used Photosynth to search flicker for photos of Notre Dame. What if someone decided to search for a particular face? This is like FBI technology available on the internet in a free ten minute download. Frightening thought. Imagine a hacker with this program and a powerful computer. They could hack into surveillance cameras and have the program search for a face. In theory, they could locate someone as their face passed across a screen in a shopping mall. The privacy violations made possible by this program are nearly endless.